Eyewitnesses said battles were raging in the city, hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein, which fell to Islamist fighters two weeks ago on the third day of a lightning offensive that has given them control of the mostly majority Sunni regions.

The helicopters were shot at as they flew low over the city and landed in a stadium at the city’s university, a security source at the scene said. Government spokesmen did not respond to requests for comment and by evening the assault was still not being reported on state media.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said fierce clashes ensued, centred around the university compound.

Ahmed al-Jubbour, professor at the university’s college of agriculture, described fighting in the colleges of agriculture and sports education after three helicopters arrived.

“I saw one of the helicopters land opposite the university with my own eyes and I saw clashes between dozens of militants and government forces,” he said.

Jubbour said one helicopter crash landed in the stadium. Another left after dropping off troops and a third remained on the ground. Army snipers were positioning themselves on tall buildings in the university complex.

Iraq’s million-strong army, trained and equipped by the United States, largely evaporated in the north after militants led by the Islamic State in Iraq and the al-Sham (ISIS)  launched their assault with the capture of the north’s biggest city Mosul on June 10.

But in recent days, government forces have been fighting back, relying on elite commandos flown in by helicopter to defend the country’s biggest oil refinery at Baiji.

A successful operation to recapture territory inside Tikrit would deliver the most serious blow yet against an insurgency which for most of the past two weeks has seemed all but unstoppable in the Sunni heartland north and west of Baghdad.

In the capital, the president’s office confirmed that a new parliament elected two months ago would meet on July 1, the deadline demanded by the constitution, to begin the process of forming a government.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose Shi’a-led State of Law coalition won the most seats in the April election but needs allies to form a cabinet, is under strong pressure from the United States and other countries to swiftly build a more inclusive government to undermine support for the insurgency.

Maliki confirmed this week that he would support the constitutional deadlines to set up a new government, after pressure from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who flew to Baghdad for emergency crisis talks to urge him to act.

Maliki is fighting for his political life in the face of an assault that threatens to dismember his country. Sunni, Kurdish and rival Shi’a groups have demanded he leave office, and some ruling party members have suggested he could be replaced with a less polarizing figure, although close allies say he has no plan to step aside.

Washington hopes that armed Sunni tribal groups, which turned against al-Qaeda during the U.S. “surge” offensive of 2006-2007, can again be persuaded to switch sides and back the government, provided that a new cabinet is more inclusive.

The United States, which withdrew its ground forces in 2011, has ruled out sending them back but is sending up to 300 military advisers, mostly special forces troops, to help organize Baghdad’s military response.

The fighters have been halted about an hour’s drive north of Baghdad and on its western outskirts, but have pressed on with their advances in areas like religiously mixed Diyala province north of the capital, long one of Iraq’s most violent areas.

On Thursday morning, ISIS fighters staged an assault on the town of Mansouriyat al-Jabal, home to inactive gas fields where foreign firms operate, in northeastern Diyala province. An Iraqi oil ministry official denied fighters had taken the field.

A roadside bomb in Baghdad’s northern district of Kadhimiya killed eight people on Thursday, police and hospital sources said.

Syria strikes

The ISIS-led advance has put the United States on the same side as Iran, its enemy of 35 years, as well as Iran’s ally, president Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who is fighting ISIS in his country.

Locals in the Iraqi border town of al-Qaim, captured by ISIS several days ago, say Syrian jets carried out strikes against militants on the Iraqi side of the frontier this week, marking the first time Assad’s air forces have come to Baghdad’s aid.

Publicly, Baghdad, which operates helicopters but no jets, initially said its own forces carried out the air strike. But a senior Iraqi government official confirmed on condition of anonymity that the strike was mounted by Assad’s air force.

A BBC article said Maliki confirmed that Syrian jets had bombed militants near the border. Maliki said he did not ask for the raid but “welcomed” any strike against ISIS, the BBC said.

Syrian state media has denied the country carried out attacks on Iraq.

The BBC had earlier reported that US drones carried out the air strikes on al-Qaim, an allegation quickly denied by the US defense secretary spokesperson.

Iran, which armed and trained some of Iraq’s Shi’a militias, has pledged to intervene if necessary in Iraq to protect Shi’a holy places. 

Several media reports claimed Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Qods Force, a division of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which conducts special operations outside Iran, is in Baghdad to help the Iraqi government against ISIS. However, the Iranian foreign ministry refuted the claims on Thursday.

U.S. asks Gulf states to help Iraq

The United States urged Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates on Thursday to do what they can to encourage Iraq to form an inclusive government to tackle Islamist militant forces threatening to tear apart the country.

In a frenetic round of meetings in Paris, Kerry briefed his counterparts about U.S. intelligence-gathering on potential targets in Iraq aimed at beating back the insurgency, according to senior State Department officials.

He made clear Washington had not decided whether to launch air strikes “but reserves the right to do so,” the officials told reporters, adding that none of the countries offered military assistance.

Kerry also discussed Syria and Iraq earlier with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Lieberman spoke generally of the threat to all countries in the Middle East from Islamist militancy, but there was no discussion about the possibility of Israel collaborating in the fight against ISIS, the officials said.  

— Reuters, TAAN